Where I Live: Can I Pray for You?

Dear friend and congregant Laura had to go to the emergency room the other day.  She was having some pretty scary and painful symptoms, so her husband Les (also a pastor) had called the rescue squad to come.

Almost as soon as Les hung up the phone, there was Craig at their door.

Craig isn’t with the rescue squad – he’s a volunteer fireman.  But when he heard the call, he went, just to see if he could help.  While they waited, Craig moved some furniture out of the way to make it easier for the squad to get in and out once they arrived.

And then he sat beside Laura and asked her if she minded if he prayed for her.

She didn’t.

And he did.

Simple as that.

Where I live, when the call goes out, friends and neighbors come just to see if they can help.

And they stay to pray.  Sometimes they even do it out loud.

And it is good.

This Praying With

I prayed with someone today.

It is a ginormous gift – this praying with.

Every now and then we’ll just sit in shared silence with only the offered prayer between us.

But most times the need is named, the hurt laid bare, hands are held, wounds described, silences shared, askings lifted.

It’s holy ground, this praying with.

Holy, hopeful ground, where two or more gather together and name the thing to God – the God who already knows – in the quietude of expectation – not of answers desired so much, but in the expectancy of being heard and being held.

It’s a waiting space, this praying with.

The prayer is offered, teary eyes are dried, life in the normal resumes – a little lighter as the prayer wends its way from our hearts to God’s.  But then begins the waiting – what will God’s answer will be and when will it come.  There is comfort that we wait together – I hope.

It’s meeting place, this praying with.

Masks come off when people pray together.  Hearts are laid bare.  Trust – tremulous or certain – enters in – and that trust – one in another as well as they together in God – is such an act of generosity.

I know God is worthy of it.

I hope I am.